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I've thought about this a lot this week.
Goal: more effectively monetize product
Inverted goal: do not monetize anything, continue to give everything away for free
Achieve inverted goal: continue to experiment new products but not require payment for any of them, never "get good" at any of them, be too shy to fundraise / ask for donation; or also switch to unrelated markets where I don't have competitive advantage and build in isolation behind incumbents
Achieve actual goal: use ethical strategies from free-to-play games, fundraise, focus on market where I have competitive advantage even if it's not necessarily the one with the highest returns, focus on my users
I use postmark connected to my django website for everything. I tried Ghost, but it got really expensive after 10k or so users to email
Hey I'll be back in June if you'll still be around. I work at Diplo Café a bit or those cafes around exarcheia, but also Faeinon and some farther out. Also prelab is really cool if you want coworking space to focus. i tried it for a month and seemed useful
I just finished Circe by Madeline Miller, thinking about writing scripts for serious history-themed games. It was good! Also have been reading Kingsolver (mostly rereading Poisonwood) & Neal Stephenson's Fall or Dodge in Hell.
I don't know if it counts but was playing through narratives of every game by that game company and feel like it's in the same register
Congrats on the launch, and I get what you're offering and who you're offering it to from the homepage. Do you have example work up anywhere?
Or if you're thinking for edtech, do you have example lesson plans or know how to navigate the morass of teaching standards? (I had to research them last year for tpt and it took a lot of time.) p.s. i also love deathwish!
It's an interesting question, and I'll check out those books. I've always wondered about this--I grew up in a rural area and it didn't really ever enter our mind to enjoy life. I started as a writer before anything in tech, and then the products that I worked on just became a creative obsession like an essay or novel.
I totally agree that freelancing too much can kill the soul and make you miss things because you're constantly working toward deadlines and under client decisions. But if you get to know a small segment of customers, that could help for building a product?
I used to spend most of my days just going really nice places, but it wasn't meaningful. Cicero has this book called On duties or De oficiis, and reading it earlier this year for the better or worse made me end up moving back to my home country.
I guess along with enjoyment, what do you find most meaningful? I kind of just stuck with that through thick and thin, but I don't think that's the "right" way to do things--just my take.
I've always thought that programming must be a lot like writing a book - haven't written a book, but I can see some parallels.
I also realized something similar to what you did recently - and it became increasingly obvious after my last backpacking trip to southeast asia a few months ago. Basically, I realized that you can only see so many temples, beaches, waterfalls, cultural sights, bars, and go on so many adventures before it all gets a bit tired and starts to feel pointless. I think a better way to live is to do truly meaningful work and be located wherever is best to do that work and where your community is, even if it means going back to your home country or staying in the same place for a long time instead of being nomadic.
I'm personally gearing up to move to another country to extend my financial runway to be able to do indie hacking as long as possible, but I don't plan to hop between cities/countries every few weeks. ~3-6 months per location at minimum until I find somewhere that works for me, then I'll stay for years. I'd like to find somewhere where I can build a friend group and join a community of people who are doing the same thing (looking at Thailand which has options like KoHub + tons of indie hackers in BKK and Chiangmai), and I think that'll be good for my mental health too.
Hey, I'm not, but one of my best friends is from Thess & just moved back earlier this year, so if you're ever in a lurch or just want to meet an interesting local techie, drop me a line!